CRITICALITY SAFETY ANALYSIS OF SPENT

FUEL STORAGE POOL FOR NPP

MOCHOVCE USING MCNP5

G. Farkas1, J. Haščík1, J. Lüley1, B. Vrban1, M. Petriska1, V. Slugeň1, P. Urban2

1
SUT in Bratislava, Ilkovicova 3, 812 19 Bratislava, Slovakia
2
SE a.s., NPP Mochovce, Slovakia

gabriel.farkas@stuba.sk
Objectives

 Perform criticality safety analysis (CSA) for spent fuel

storage pool (both compact and reserve grid) of the NPP
Mochovce 1 and 2 at very conservative conditions.

 Two basic loading scenarios were considered for the

analysis:
 Full loading with fresh 4.87 % enr. Gd-II fuel assemblies
 Partial loading with fresh and highly burned (45
and 50 MWd/kg) fuel assemblies.
Analysis code and validation (1)

 The criticality safety analysis  was based on determination of

the effective neutron multiplication factor (keff)  key parameter
for CS.

 MCNP5 1.40 code and ENDF/B-VII.0 data were used.

 Code validation  was conducted analyzing the BaW XI (2) case

of the Criticality Safety Validation Suite [1].

 The validation calculation was run with 200 active cycles  this
number was sufficient to rend the computation uncertainty from
the MCNP5 calculation essentially negligible relative to the given
benchmark uncertainty.

 Based on this validation  bias and its uncertainty were

calculated.

[1] International Handbook of Evaluated Criticality Safety Benchmark Experiments,

NEA/NSC/DOC(95)3, OECD Nuclear Energy Agency, ISBN 978-92-64-99140-8 (2006)
Analysis code and validation (2)

The bias and its uncertainty were calculated according formulas:

 bias  keff
bench
 keff
calcul

 bias   bench
2
  calcul
2

Based on this validation  bias and its uncertainty to be taken into consideration
for CSA are:
 bias  0.0001
 bias  0.00142
Evaluation method (1)
 Conservative approach  was applied in order to evaluate the
final maximal keff.

 Calculations were performed for normal and various postulated

emergency conditions

 All conditions improving neutron multiplication in the storage pool

(compact & reserve grid) were taken into account.
Evaluation method (2)

 The maximal effective multiplication factor  evaluated as

a sum of the calculated conservative keff, the systematic
error, and the combined uncertainty multiplied by 1.645
which is the one-sided tolerance limit factor for a normal
distribution at 95% probability.

max
k eff  k eff
conser
  bias  1.645  bench
2
  calcul
2
  conser
2
Model (1)

 The following detailed models were developed in MCNP5 for

criticality safety analysis:

 compact grid of the spent nuclear fuel storage pool 

603 hexagonal absorption tubes filled with profiled Gd-II
fuel assemblies, 54 hermetic tubes, supporting plate,
and concrete well.

 reserve grid of the spent nuclear fuel storage pool 

296 fuel assemblies, 54 hermetic tubes, supporting
plate, and concrete well.
Model (2) - compact grid of the spent fuel storage pool

Absorption tube with FA

Model (3) - compact grid of the spent fuel storage pool

Hermetic tube with FA

Model (4) - compact grid of the spent fuel storage pool
Model (5) - reserve grid of the spent fuel storage pool
 Results – CSA of the compact grid (basic variants)

VARIANT - A VARIANT - B VARIANT – C1(D1) VARIANT – C2(D2)

All positions (AT + HT) Loading with 4.87 % Loading with 4.87 % Loading with 4.87 %
loaded with 4.87 % enr. fresh FAs and 4 enr. fresh FAs and 4 enr. fresh FAs and 4
enr. fresh FAs empty layers layers of 45 (50) layers of 45 (50)
MWd/kg burned FAs MWd/kg burned FAs
Results – CSA of the reserve grid

VARIANT – R1 VARIANT – R2

Full loading (including HT) with Full loading (including HT) with
4.87 % enr. fresh FAs 45 MWd/kg burned FAs
Results - CSA of the compact grid (emergency cases)

Investigated emergency cases:

• Diagonal downfall of fresh FA
• Longitudinal downfall of fresh FA
• Longitudinal downfall of fresh FA on the hermetic tubes
 DIAGONAL FA DOWNFALL LONGITUDINAL FA DOWNFALL
VARIANT- E11 VARIANT- E12 VARIANT- E21 VARIANT- E22

 Loading with fresh FAs  Loading with fresh FAs  Loading with fresh FAs  Loading with fresh FAs
 4 empty layers  4 layers of 45 MWd/kg  4 empty layers  4 layers of 45 MWd/kg
- burned FAs - burned FAs

LONGITUDINAL FA DOWNFALL ON HERMETIC

T.
VARIANT- E31 VARIANT- E32

 Loading with fresh FAs  Loading with fresh FAs

 4 empty layers  4 layers of 45 MWd/kg
- burned FAs
Conclusion

 Criticality issues associated with compact and reserve grid of

the spent fuel storage pool were investigated for NPP
Mochovce 1,2 using MCNP5.

 Strong conservative approach was applied to calculate

maximal multiplication factor values for postulated
conditions.

 The outcomes showed that the requirement of safety

regulations to ensure 5 % subcriticality was met except one
especially conservative case of the fully loaded compact grid
with fresh 4.87 % enriched Gd-II FAs. Only in this case, the
calculated value exceeded the required subcriticality limit of
0.95 by 0.55 %.

 Analysis confirmed that nuclear criticality safety criteria in

terms of the spent fuel storage pool are satisfied even at
very conservative conditions.